Ephesians 5:8-14
Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Find out what is pleasing to the Lord.
Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness except to expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly, but everything exposed by the light becomes visible and coming out of the darkness can then become light itself.
Therefore it says,
“Awake, O sleeper!
Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you.”
The reading we just heard is the New Testament reading for this Sunday and it comes from the Letter to the Ephesians ..... maybe. This is one of the disputed letters, long attributed to Paul but now widely believed to not actually be from Paul himself, but rather, someone writing in his name.
There are a lot of small things that just don’t quite add up to Paul -- syntax, subject matter – even the fact that it seems to have been written as a circulating letter – one meant for several churches, with the reference “to Ephesus” being adding in later and not as part of the original address and greeting.
There are several odd passages here, but the one we are focusing on here today, the piece I just read, is not one of them. Instead, it is a perfectly logical description of the early Christian belief that Jesus, dying and living for us, has changed things forever.
“Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.” The NRSV, the New King James, and the NIV, all use this strange sentence structure in their translations, indicating that we were darkness, not just that we lived in darkness. The Living Bible phrases it this way: “Once your heart was full of darkness, now it is full of light from the Lord.” And The Message, of course, says it in its own unique way: “You groped your way through that murk once, but no longer. You’re out in the open now. The bright light of Christ makes your way plain.”
Have you ever felt that you are darkness, or filled with darkness, or just plain lost in the darkness? Any of these?
I seriously doubt that any of us have gone through our lives thus far without at some time, at some point, feeling in the dark. Feeling like we’ve temporarily lost our way and we’re wandering in the gloom – not sure where we’re going or where we’ve been. It may have been a light fog or it may have felt like total blackout.
But the point in this scripture, as well as many others, is that the Lord is the one who guides our way, even in that darkness – the one who brings light to our lives by being the light in our lives. “Live as children of light,” we are told, “for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.”
Just as the darkness can take many forms, so the light can be in our lives in many ways. Jesus is that light that comes from God and is meant by God to fill our lives – living as children of the light. As children of light we are called to live lives that are, to the best of our abilities, filled with all that is good and right and true.
Now, that may sound too simplistic; maybe it sounds like it’s harder to do than to say. Maybe – but maybe not. God does not set lines in the sky – goals we must reach in perfection. God does not count our failures. We try to follow the way of Jesus. Period. And if we try to live with goodness and truth and all that we know is right then we will be light. I believe it truly is that simple. Jesus is our light and if we follow his way then we too will walk in the light.
And I suspect, there will be Joy there, as well.
Thanks be to God.
There are a lot of small things that just don’t quite add up to Paul -- syntax, subject matter – even the fact that it seems to have been written as a circulating letter – one meant for several churches, with the reference “to Ephesus” being adding in later and not as part of the original address and greeting.
There are several odd passages here, but the one we are focusing on here today, the piece I just read, is not one of them. Instead, it is a perfectly logical description of the early Christian belief that Jesus, dying and living for us, has changed things forever.
“Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.” The NRSV, the New King James, and the NIV, all use this strange sentence structure in their translations, indicating that we were darkness, not just that we lived in darkness. The Living Bible phrases it this way: “Once your heart was full of darkness, now it is full of light from the Lord.” And The Message, of course, says it in its own unique way: “You groped your way through that murk once, but no longer. You’re out in the open now. The bright light of Christ makes your way plain.”
Have you ever felt that you are darkness, or filled with darkness, or just plain lost in the darkness? Any of these?
I seriously doubt that any of us have gone through our lives thus far without at some time, at some point, feeling in the dark. Feeling like we’ve temporarily lost our way and we’re wandering in the gloom – not sure where we’re going or where we’ve been. It may have been a light fog or it may have felt like total blackout.
But the point in this scripture, as well as many others, is that the Lord is the one who guides our way, even in that darkness – the one who brings light to our lives by being the light in our lives. “Live as children of light,” we are told, “for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.”
Just as the darkness can take many forms, so the light can be in our lives in many ways. Jesus is that light that comes from God and is meant by God to fill our lives – living as children of the light. As children of light we are called to live lives that are, to the best of our abilities, filled with all that is good and right and true.
Now, that may sound too simplistic; maybe it sounds like it’s harder to do than to say. Maybe – but maybe not. God does not set lines in the sky – goals we must reach in perfection. God does not count our failures. We try to follow the way of Jesus. Period. And if we try to live with goodness and truth and all that we know is right then we will be light. I believe it truly is that simple. Jesus is our light and if we follow his way then we too will walk in the light.
And I suspect, there will be Joy there, as well.
Thanks be to God.
RSS Feed